Blah Blah Blah

Dan Roam

Description

Ever been to so many meetings that you couldn't get your work done? Ever fallen asleep during a bullet-point presentation? Ever watched the news and ended up knowing less? Welcome to the land of Blah, Blah, Blah, in which talk and words prevent us from thinking. As powerful as words are, we fool ourselves when we think our words alone can detect, describe and defuse the multifaceted problems of today. This book offers a way out of Blah, Blah, Blah. It's called "Vivid Thinking", which combines our verbal and visual minds so that we can think and learn more quickly, teach and inspire our colleagues, and enjoy and share ideas in a new and more effective way. Through Vivid Thinking, we can make the most complicated subjects suddenly crystal clear - something which is proving increasingly valuable in this complex world of ours.

Sujets

• Marketing et communication

Informations

• Publié par: Marshall Cavendish International
• Date de parution: 02 décembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789814484855
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
The Back of the Napkin (Expanded Edition):
Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures
Unfolding the Napkin:
The Hands-On Method for Solving Complex Problems with Simple Pictures

First published in 2011 by Portfolio / Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Copyright 2011 Dan Roam Design by Daniel Lagin
This edition published in 2012, by arrangement with Portfolio / Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., by Marshall Cavendish Business, an imprint of Marshall Cavendish International
PO Box 65829, London EC1P 1NY, United Kingdom [e-mail]
and
1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196 [e-mail]
Other Marshall Cavendish offices:
Marshall Cavendish Corporation. 99 White Plains Road, Tarrytown NY 10591-9001, USA Marshall Cavendish International (Thailand) Co Ltd. 253 Asoke, 12th Flr, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd. Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Marshall Cavendish is a trademark of Times Publishing Limited
The right of Dan Roam to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Requests for permission should be addressed to the publisher. The author and publisher have used their best efforts in preparing this book and disclaim liability arising directly and indirectly from the use and application of this book. All reasonable efforts have been made to obtain necessary copyright permissions. Any omissions or errors are unintentional and will, if brought to the attention of the publisher, be corrected in future printings.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-981-4382-05-2 e-ISBN: 978 981 4484 85 5
Printed and bound in Singapore by KWF Printing Co Pte Ltd
For Sophie and Celeste.
Watching you learn illuminates the world for me.
For Kay M. Roam. Fly, Mom-fly!
CONTENTS
Dramatis Personae
Introduction: Half of What We Think About Thinking Is Wrong
PART 1
The Blah-Blahmeter
1. Exploring the Land of Blah-Blah-Blah
2. Advanced Blah-Blahmeter Use
PART 2
If I Draw, Am I Dumb? An Introduction to Vivid Thinking
3. Two Minds Are Better Than One
4. Together Again: The Fox and the Hummingbird
5. The Grammar of Vivid Thinking
PART 3
The Forest and the Trees: The Seven Essentials of a Vivid Idea
6. The Vivid F-O-R-E-S-T: The Six Essentials of Vivid Ideas
7. F Is for Form: Vivid Ideas Have Shape
8. O Is for Only the Essentials: Vivid Ideas Fit in a Nutshell
9. R Is for Recognizable: Vivid Ideas Look Familiar
10. E Is for Evolving: Vivid Ideas Are Complete-but Not Done
11. S Is for Span Differences: Vivid Ideas Include Their Opposite
12. T Is for Targeted: Vivid Ideas Matter to Me
PART 4
Conclusion
13. Bye-Bye, Blah-Blah-Blah
Acknowledgments
APPENDIXES
Appendix A: How We Lost Half Our Mind
Appendix B: Connections Back to The Back of the Napkin
Appendix C: The Complete Vivid Checklist

Notes
Bibliography
Index
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
(CAST OF CHARACTERS)
In Order of Appearance

INTRODUCTION
Half of What We Think About Thinking Is Wrong
e think that thinking means stringing words together in a meaningful way. We think that talking is the best way to share an idea. We think that speaking well is the cornerstone of intelligence. We re only half right.
This book is about three things: blah, blah, and blah-three little words that are killing our ability to think, learn, work, and lead.
Blah-blah-blah is complexity, which kills our ability to think. This book introduces an easier way to think about complicated things.
Blah-blah-blah is misunderstanding, which kills our ability to lead. This book presents a simple way to better understand our ideas before, during, and after we share them with other people.
Blah-blah-blah is boredom, which kills our ability to care. This book lays out a way to make learning about complex ideas infinitely more engaging-and infinitely more fun. (Don t tell anyone about that last part; they ll think we re not serious.)
This book is about how to stop blah-blah-blah before it stops us.
This Book and Its Tools
This book is laid out in three parts. The first part introduces the three blahs.

The second part introduces an antidote to blah-blah-blah. It s called Vivid thinking.

The third part presents a map that gets us from one to the other.

Each of the three parts introduces a tool. First is the blah-blahmeter, a device that helps us detect incoming blah-blah-blah before it hits. The second tool is Vivid Grammar, a simple set of guidelines that show us how to avoid blah-blah-blah by engaging both our verbal and visual minds. The third tool is the Vivid FOREST, a map that shows us an easy-to-follow path to make sure our own ideas are vibrant, clear, and memorable.

Let s Meet Our Contestants

Blah, blah, and blah are the overuse, misuse, and abuse of language-anything we say that interferes with our ability to convey ideas. Blah-blah-blah isn t just about being boring (although boring is often part of it), nor is blah-blah-blah about being intentionally misleading (although misleading is also often part of it). What blah-blah-blah really means is that we ve become so enamored of our words that we ve fooled ourselves into believing we understand things better than we actually do.
When words don t work, thinking doesn t work. Wonderful as words are, they cannot alone detect, describe, and defuse the multifaceted problems of today. That s bad, because words have become our default thinking tool. Even worse, for most of us words are our only thinking tool.
We need a new tool.
Sliding into the Land of Blah-Blah-Blah
Many years ago, I worked at a small consulting company. Our boss was a brilliant salesman but an operational disaster, a combination that ensured we always had more work than we could handle. Being busy was an advantage: Since we never had enough time, we constantly improvised-and in looking for quicker ways to solve old problems, we were surrounded by new ideas. While our days were long, we always went home feeling good about everything we d gotten done.
After a few successful years, our company got big. New management came in, and before long all we did was go to meetings. Here s the new company vision and values. Here s our new synergy-leveraging go-to-market strategy. Here s our new customer-centric restructuring plan. Blah-blah-blah. Those days were also long, but they weren t satisfying. The more we talked, the fewer problems we solved. Before long, ideas stopped showing up, and our once respected little company became a permanent fixture in the land of blah-blah-blah.
I quit.
There s No Place Like Home
But I couldn t get away. None of us can.
In today s learning and working world, blah-blah-blah has become our home. Ever been to three meetings back to back? Welcome to blah-blah-blah. Ever left a meeting more confused than when you entered? Ever watched two hours of cable news and knew that you knew less about the world? Ever stifled another yawn during another conference-room bullet-point bonanza? You get the picture.
At least we re not alone.
We Know Too Much
Blah-blah-blah comes in a sliding scale, from too much information to too little information to negative information.

On the too-much-information side, blah-blah-blah overwhelms our capacity for recall: So much knowledge comes in that we ve got no choice but to let most of it flow right back out. Case in point: Late last year, two of broadcast media s most well-read celebrities met on a New York stage to talk books-and ended up commiserating about how little of what they read they could remember.
Jon Stewart, host of the comedy news program The Daily Show, sat down with National Public Radio s interviewing legend Terry Gross to discuss Stewart s new book. Not long into the interview, Gross asked Stewart if he actually read all the books he reviewed. Stewart jokingly said yes-he always made a point of reading both the front and back covers. Then, momentarily serious, he continued:
Stewart: Some weeks we have four books, and they can be big ones, you know: historical nonfiction. But I read pretty quickly, and I try and read as much of the books as I possibly can and I have a pretty good ability to get through it, retaining a good deal of its information . . .
Then he paused for effect:
. . . for a four-to-six-hour period. And then it disappears from my brain for the rest of my life.
Gross: Do I know that feeling. I so know that feeling.
Stewart: I take it in and suddenly I m an expert on the construction of the Pentagon . . . and then by eight o clock that night I m like, Really? I didn t know there was a building with five sides!
The scariest part of this exchange is that these are the smart people. If Jon Stewart and Terry Gross can t keep pace with everything they read, what hope is there for the rest of us?
We Know Nothing
Blah-blah-blah means sometimes we may be surrounded by lots of words but they contain no meaning.

Cond Nast, publisher of the world s most prestigious collection of magazines (Vogue, Glamour, Vanity Fair, Golf Digest, Wired, The New Yorker, etc.), should know that: The company publishes millions of words every month that subscribers can t wait to read. Yet a recent e-mail sent by the CEO to all employees took five hundred words to say . . . well, nothing.
In his companywide note of Tuesday, October 5, 2010, Cond Nast CEO Chuck Townsend sought to clarify the thinking behind a number of changes